New documentary offers a sneak peek into the mysterious world of Christian Louboutin

A designer who needs no introduction these days is footwear maestro Christian Louboutin. With a slew of celebrities advertising his designs (indeed even Kanye West who is notoriously difficult to please has sported Louboutin loafers) and women the world over salivating over his trademark red soled shoes, the designer’s name can’t but be mentioned when the conversation turns to shoes. But while we’re familiar with his designs and even more so with his patrons, we know precious little about what inspires him to create those red soled works of art. We’re about to learn just that thanks to a new documentary created by the designer’s friend Farida Khelfa.
The model followed Louboutin for two years to create the 52 minute feature, filming him everywhere from Egypt to New York. “He’s like my brother, but I think to others he’s pretty mysterious, and so I was hoping to shed some light,” she said. The subject of the documentary himself complimented her work stating, “It’s rare for me to talk for more than five minutes. Here it’s for an hour, and I don’t feel like I’m suffocating,” following a screening of the film. Featuring David Lynch, Blake Lively and Alicia Keys among other Louboutin devotees, the film also attracted the praise of Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz, Jean Paul Gaultier – who was surprised by the candidness of Louboutin’s revelations about his family background and how it influenced his work- as well as Haider Ackermann whose takeaways from the film were: “Always look to the feet. Shoes change the posture.”

If you weren’t invited to the screening worry not, you can catch the documentary on good old cable on the Arte channel on Sept. 27 at 10:30 p.m. where it will be aired as part of a weekend of fashion programs presented by model Nadja Auermann. You can also set your TiVo to record because we hear documentaries about fashion royalty like Balmain and Diana Vreeland are also part of the line-up.